------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------  
Published by EH.NET (February 2006)  
  
Robert William Fogel, _The Slavery Debates, 1952-1990: A   
Retrospective_. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.   
ix + 106 pp. $23 (cloth), ISBN: 0-8071-2881-3.  
  
Reviewed for EH.NET by Leonard Carlson, Department of Economics,   
Emory University.  
  
  
This short book by Nobel Prize winner Robert Fogel gives a survey of   
the historical literature published before 1990 about the economics   
of slavery, the economy of the South before 1860, and the origins of   
the emancipation movement. This book is a tour de force that gives   
Fogel's judgments about which issues are settled and his view of a   
new consensus about southern economic history.[1] I can only mention   
a few highlights in what follows. The book has a bibliography but no   
footnotes and a reader seeking citations for some of the points made   
in the book will need to search the bibliography or look at the   
earlier _Without Consent or Contract_. There are three main chapters:   
"Breaking Away from the Phillips Tradition," "Coming to Terms with   
the Economic Viability of Slavery" and "Toward a New Synthesis on the   
Shaping of American Civilization."  
  
Fogel sees the debate about the nature of slavery in the South as   
part of a larger intellectual debate between the "old" anthropology   
(which saw races as being innately superior or inferior) and the   
"new" anthropology of Franz Boas (which saw human beings as innately   
equal but shaped by different cultural circumstances). To Fogel World   
War II was in part a struggle between the "old" anthropology   
(championed by the Nazis) and the "new" anthropology (championed by   
the allies, including the United States). This gives a new twist to   
Keynes' observation that madmen in authority distill their ideas from   
"academic" scribblers. The paradox for the U.S. was that it fought   
the Nazis at the same time that it practiced segregation in its own   
army and at home, a contradiction that had be resolved after World   
War II.  
  
Chapter one begins with a discussion of U.B. Phillips, whose work   
published in the early twentieth century dominated the scholarly work   
on slavery for many years. Fogel condemns the racism in Phillips'   
research (the old anthropology), but praises him for setting forth a   
number of interesting hypotheses, many of which have held up to   
recent research. Phillips concluded that masters in the South treated   
slave relatively well and that slavery itself was an unprofitable   
relic that lead masters to pursue status rather than profit. The view   
that slavery was unprofitable and a burden on the economic   
development of the both South and the U.S. became embedded in the   
work of progressive historians such as Charles and Mary Beard. This   
view was also embraced by historians with a Marxist emphasis. Kenneth   
Stamp in a 1952 article (hence the date in the title) and his 1956   
book, the _Peculiar Institution_, launched a major challenge to the   
dominant interpretation. Unlike Phillips, Stamp argued that slaves   
were treated in a harsh and more dehumanizing manner. In 1957 Conrad   
and Meyer added a new dimension to the historical debate by using   
theory and data to address the old question of whether slavery was   
profitable. Scholars also pursued other lines of inquiry that have   
helped shape a revised view of slavery and the anti-slavery movement.   
For example, John Blassingame, John Hope Franklin, and Eugene   
Genovese explored the development of a separate black culture under   
slavery. Other scholars began to explore the impact of evangelical   
religion on American life.  
  
The second lecture deals with debates about the economics of the   
slave system and the treatment received by slaves in the South. Much   
of the discussion was generated by challenges to conclusions reached   
either by Conrad and Meyer or Fogel and Stanley Engerman in _Time on   
the Cross_. Conrad and Meyer concluded that an investment in a slave   
could have earned a master a normal rate of return -- that is,   
slavery was profitable. This result was very controversial to many   
scholars in the 1950s and 1960s and their results were challenged in   
a variety of ways. The conclusion that in static terms slavery was   
profitable is now generally accepted by economists, however, as is   
the conclusion that per capita incomes were growing in the South up   
to the Civil War. In _Time on the Cross_, Fogel and Engerman went   
further and concluded that slavery in the South was a viable,   
flexible form of capitalism. They also found that slaves had a   
standard of living and level of treatment by masters that were not as   
harsh as Stamp had claimed. This set loose a torrent of criticism,   
much of it very hostile. Fogel concludes that in the end there were   
no losers from all the controversy. Fogel does, however, cite a   
letter to him from John Meyer that asks rhetorically "... how would   
you react to listening to one hour of fairly substantive implications   
that you lacked sensitivity to the race issue?" I don't think that it   
is too big a leap to conclude that Fogel himself relates very well to   
Meyer's rhetorical question in light of some critiques of _Time on   
the Cross_.  
  
Fogel and Engerman were the first to argue that farms in the South in   
general, and slave plantations in particular, were an average more   
efficient than northern free farms, based on a sample of farms drawn   
from the census. Their conclusion was hotly debated in scholarly   
journals. Over time the argument was refined into a claim that there   
were economies of scale in gang labor on plantations. Some recent   
empirical studies support that conclusion and Fogel sees the issue as   
settled. I expect that we have not seen the end of research on this   
topic, however.  
  
One particularly controversial set of issues raised in _Time on the   
Cross_ concerned the argument that slaves had won for themselves a   
better standard of living than Stamp had claimed. In discussing these   
issues, Fogel gives special attention to the work of Stephen Crawford   
and Richard Steckel, two of his former graduate students. Using   
evidence from interviews with former slaves recorded in the 1930s,   
Crawford found that there was more stability in the typical slave   
family than earlier research had concluded. Slaves on large   
plantations fared better than those on small plantations, which might   
explain some differences with earlier research. Data on slave heights   
analyzed by Steckel show that slaves were well fed and lived long   
lives, once they were old enough to work in the fields. Slaves were   
not well-fed as children, however, (there was apparently little   
protein in the diet) and slave mothers were often required to work   
hard during the first and third trimesters of pregnancy, which had   
adverse effects on both mother and child.  
  
In Fogel's opinion from the Civil War to present the traditional   
condemnation of slavery, the "Republican indictment of slavery,"   
rested on the assumption that slavery was inefficient. However, the   
fact that slavery was profitable does not make it a just or moral   
system. In place of the older view, Fogel argues that slavery was   
immoral because it: 1) gave one group of people legal rights to   
exercise personal domination over another; 2) denied slaves economic   
opportunity; 3) denied slaves citizenship; and 4) denied slaves   
cultural identification.  
  
The third section, "Toward a New Synthesis on the Shaping of American   
Civilization," addresses the abolition movement and the end of   
slavery. Progressive historians had downplayed morality as a cause of   
the Civil War. In this view, the South blocked needed changes and a   
northern victory was essential for America's rise as an industrial   
power in the later part of the nineteenth century. But if slavery   
wasn't dying out and the North was not held down by the South, why   
did the anti-slavery movement ultimately succeed and why did the   
North fight to keep the South in the union? In contrast to the   
economic origins emphasized by the progressive historians, Fogel   
argues that the slavery issue became an important issue because many   
people saw slavery as against the wishes of God. This view grew out   
of the moral sensibility that arose out of the evangelicalism that   
resulted from the "second great awakening" in the 1830's. This   
religiously-based condemnation of slavery led to heated political   
debate about whether slavery should be allowed in new territories in   
the West. The Whig party split into northern and southern branches   
over the issue and faded from national importance.  
  
The 1850s also saw increased hostility toward immigrants, especially   
Catholic immigrants, by native workers who feared that they would   
lose their jobs to new workers willing to take lower wages. This   
tension was further fueled by economic recession in the mid 1850's.   
One result was the growth of the nativist Know Nothing Party which   
was opposed to immigrants and Catholics. Fogel argues that   
enterprising politicians in the 1850's blended the anti-slavery   
movement, anti-immigrant fears and remnants of the Whig Party to form   
the ultimately successful Republican Party. The Republicans rallied   
around the cause of keeping slavery out of western territories.   
Southerners responded to these attacks on slavery in the territories   
by trying ever harder to allow slavery to spread. Fogel's nuanced   
view is sure to stimulate interesting new research -- as will his   
emphasis on the impact of religious movements on political reform.  
  
Undoubtedly this short book will be widely cited and should be read   
by anyone interested in the economic history of slavery or, indeed,   
the economic history of the United States.  
  
Note:  
1. This is the fourth major review of the literature on slavery and   
the South by Fogel. A reader new to this literature would benefit by   
looking at all of them, since each covers somewhat different topics   
and a reader can see the evolution of Fogel's thinking. These are   
found in _Reinterpretation of American Economic History_ (1971),   
_Time on the Cross_ (1974), and _Without Consent or Contract_ (1989).  
  
  
Leonard Carlson teaches a course on the political economy of the U.S.   
South. His research interests are in the economic history of the   
United States, the economics of federal Indian policy, applied   
microeconomics, and labor economics.  
  
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